Requiem to Eternity
by Kyrrlatur
Summary: Tayuya, kunoichi of the Sound Four. Symphonia, universe of two broken and separated worlds. It only proves that, wherever you go, there will always be work for a trained killer. Morbid imagery. Gore. Broken dolls and tortured paramours. Eventual romance.
1. Broken Doll, Strange World

"Talking"

'_Thinking'/Illusion/Remembrance_

"**Spell/Technique"**

**

* * *

**Broken Doll, Strange World

Tayuya stared at the shaft of metal in her hand, a clean diagonal segment showing where it had been split by the Suna (Sand) kunoichi's **Kamaitachi (Cutting Whirlwind)**.

Uncaring of her surroundings, she rested her back against the solid tree trunk behind her and slumped, her horned head bowing. For once the mutated instincts of the Cursed Seal agreed with her conscious mind, and she slid further down the trunk, seating herself on the branch.

There was nothing left for her anymore. Orochimaru was going to kill her if she returned, and her flute, her only personal possession, was destroyed.

_It was always cold in Kumogakure (Hidden in the Clouds), with the high elevation chilling the air, and the frequent banks of fog soaking the homeless to the bone._

She distantly heard a female voice call out a technique, as well as a sharp burst of chakra signaling the strength of the technique being quite high.

"**Kuchiyose: Kirikiri Mai! (Summoning: Quick Beheading Dance)"**

Rather distantly, she felt and heard trees toppling over, as well as a powerful gust of wind only being enhanced by the displacement of air as the trees fell. Her sharp hearing caught the telltale whistling sound of a sharp object slicing through the air at high speeds, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

_A small redheaded child, shivering underneath thin clothing as the fog cleared. Hypothermia was setting in, and the child clutched at a metal object like a lifeline. Their mind was unattached to the present, remembering the lullabies the mother used to sing before __**they**__ had come. Clouded headbands dominated the child's nightmares.  
_

The tree she was resting in was blown over, sliced clean through by the sharpest blade of all; a blade made of wind. She made no move to escape the toppling foliage. Instead, she channeled chakra to her eyes, morbidly curious as to what had been the instrument of her demise. She was able to make out the shape of a weasel holding a kama in all four of its paws, an eye patch over one eye. She would have laughed, if there wasn't a tree crushing her lower body and driving all the air out of her lungs.

Colors swam before her eyes, prompting her to close them. She regulated her breathing, just as she was taught to do, and fell into a coma to preserve her life. The Cursed Seal receded, leaving the fourteen year old Tayuya broken, internally bleeding, but with a peaceful expression on her face.

_A black head of hair, shining in the midday sun. Golden, slit eyes peering at her with sickening interest. "Come with me" he had said. "Come with me, and show me your potential."  
_

A head of grey hair appeared over one of the thick tree trunks holding her captive, mocking amusement written in his expression. With strength only medic-nins were capable of possessing, toppled trees, only some of several hundred, were moved. Her body was picked up with care born of professional interest in her health rather than personal interest. The two disappeared in a blur of movement.

_The child looked up at the man and saw only salvation, unable to comprehend the complexities of human expression. Warily, the child extended their hand, keeping the metal object close out of habit. Pale spidery fingers grasped her hand, and both beings disappeared._

_

* * *

_When Tayuya returned to consciousness, the first sensations that struck her were nauseating. The smell of old blood, fear, and an almost mocking scent of fresh lemon cleaning fluid assailed her nose. Instead of the conventional white walls and ceiling of a hospital, she saw metal devices, a darkened room, and thin paper separating her bed from the others. Apathy soon returned to her, her right hand clenched around her broken flute, and she fell back into her catatonia.

_The training was rigorous, failure was not an option. The child was placed with several other children and ordered to work as a team. Distrust born of living on the streets was mirrored in each of their expressions, and only the fear of death forced them to extend their jealously guarded trust to one another._

Awake but unresponsive, Tayuya was audience to Kabuto's voice. He seemed to be filled with a fake sort of glee, eagerly chatting away to her glassy-eyed body.

"Tayuya-chan, you'll be glad to know that Sasuke-kun made it to Otogakure (Hidden in the Sound) safely by himself. Orochimaru-sama is quite taken with him for the moment, and will be for quite some time, but he is very _interested_ in your wellbeing. He gave me a wonderful job! I am to use _whatever_ means necessary to return you to fighting form!"

The body didn't respond, but within its mind, it was aware, if uncaring. She knew Kabuto wasn't the sort to take advantage of her state; he had a twisted form of gallantry that he followed. That is not to say the rest of Otogakure wouldn't try, however.

_Thin hands held tightly to the metal object, holding it as one would a security blanket. The child was unwilling to ever part with it, using all of their physical strength, even in sleep, to keep hold of it. The rest of the children respected her claim on the object, through fear of how she would react if it were taken from her._

Unhealthily pale hands glowing with the medical chakra of a **Shosen no Jutsu (Mystical Palm Technique)** brushed along her legs and hips. Had she been more connected to her body, Tayuya would have felt searing pain of scalpels biting into her muscular structure and nervous system, even as the surface flesh was undisturbed. Kabuto had earned his authority in Otogakure, as nobody wanted to be on the receiving end of his surgery-turned-offensive-technique **Chakra no Mesu (Chakra Scalpels)** in a fight.

Sedation was a waste of money, money that could be spent to further Orochimaru-sama's aims. Medical jutsu replicating anesthesia was a waste of chakra, chakra that could be spent to further Orochimaru-sama's experiments. Knocking out a patient was avoided, as an unconscious patient could turn comatose very quickly.

_Each of the children was specialized into a specific area. The redhead, as the only girl, was given the domain of illusions due to her superior chakra control. Each of the children guarded their studies with jealousy born from living on the streets, fighting for every scrap of food or shelter._

"Just think, Tayuya-chan. If I can undo your paralysis, I could be noted as one of the greatest medic-nin in the history of the Elemental Countries! Not even Tsunade-sama can undo nerve damage, you know. Don't worry; this'll just sting a bit."

Even catatonic, the kunoichi was struck with the urge to scream as the probing scalpels dug into her spinal cord.

_The redheaded child quickly settled into her own defensive mechanism, just as the other children did. Vile curses flung from her lips at the slightest hint of being vulnerable, repelling any who tried to get close to her. Pent up aggression and pain was channeled through her genjutsu and fuelled her anger._

_

* * *

_"Orochimaru-sama has given me a deadline, Tayuya-chan. I have a month to get you back to fighting shape. I've been able to restore your nervous system, but it looks like you'll need to relearn walking! Oh, this will be fun!"

Kabuto's pale face drew into a smirk as his patient moved on automatic, still not wholly responsive.

"Try moving your toes, Tayuya-chan."

The movement wasn't much, only a slight twitching. The lack of progress prompted a frown on the pale man's face as his hands moved into the seals once again.

_Out of twenty children, only four remained. A dark skinned child with six arms, a pudgy child with orange hair, the redheaded child, and a child with an extra head attached to their neck. They were moved from the special training camp, now strewn with the bodies of the failed children, to the barracks with the rest of Otogakure's forces. The successful children left behind their bloody weapons, though the redhead kept the deathgrip on her metal object._

_

* * *

_Three weeks left to the deadline, and Kabuto was getting annoyed. Tayuya hadn't shown more than being able to move her toes. Consulting Orochimaru on it, he tried a new tactic.

"Tayuya-chan, if you can't get back into the shape you were in before the mission, Orochimaru-sama sees fit to use you as a test subject for his latest seal array."

This provoked a response he was hoping for; the toes curled and the foot pointed.

_Trust in her comrades only extended as far as trust. Trust that they would survive, regardless of the circumstances. They were all they had, except for Orochimaru-sama. None would dare disobey the snake-eyed leader, he need only whisper the command and it would be done. Orochimaru-sama had saved them from the streets; it was the least they could do to repay him._

Progress was painfully slow, and Kabuto began baiting the nearly-catatonic kunoichi. He refrained from referring to her as 'Tayuya-chan', and merely as 'Specimen 3870'. His procedures lost what little bedside manner they had before, using the most brutal and invasive paths possible. His thoughtless muttering became openly mocking.

"What wonderful news we had today! Your comrades were all killed by Genin, and Kimimaro-kun died to his disease. That means you're the last of your squad! Without them, you are nothing. Poor, poor Specimen 3870, nobody is going to mourn you when you are used to test the seal array. I heard Orochimaru-sama actually created the seal array when trying to replicate the Yondaime's **Hiraishin (Flying Thunder God)**. You know what this means, right? It means you could get split into hundreds of tiny pieces by the speed, even if it is successful!"

The taunting dialogue caused her to retreat further, halting her progress as she became comatose.

* * *

_The barracks was a horrible place, especially for a female. The grunts were generally gathered from the streets and prisons, used only for manual labor. The redhead has lost count of how many times wandering hands had found their way to her body, only to be repulsed by generous use of choice swear words and painfully explicit descriptions of how she would dismember them. The other children in her squad found it morbidly amusing, and goaded her with stolen words and phrases they had heard the older men using when referring to her._

_In response, she began preemptively abusive, using her words as men use their fists, hiding her physical frailty by a strong appearance._

_The training became more sadistic, teaching each of the children to hold onto secrets with their lives. Their pain tolerance was brutally elevated through scheduled torture sessions, using poison, electricity, and sharp implements. They further learned to trust their comrades when it was them who became the torturers, 'helping' their comrades by torturing them. Each would take turns attempting to gather the secrets out of the others, only to be victimized soon after. Orochimaru-sama had no use for fragile subordinates, unable to resist torture. Likewise, he had no use for subordinates who would shy away from brutality. _

_There was no friendship, no 'sordid love affairs' between comrades. They were simply soldiers in a squad; friendship and love were weaknesses. "If you worry about your squad-mates, you decrease your capabilities. You need only to trust them to survive." It was a mantra drilled into their heads. Soon, they began parroting the words, and later they would live them._

Tayuya's skin paled from lack of sunlight, and her body became gaunt. Her eyes sunken into their sockets, tendons and muscles standing out starkly against bones. With her glassy brown eyes and greasy, unkempt red hair, she looked like a broken doll, all porcelain skin and sharp angles. It was a far cry from the fiery kunoichi she had been, but still her bony hand was wrapped painfully about the broken flute.

* * *

_Her first solo mission had been given to her by Orochimaru-sama himself. She was to infiltrate Kumogakure and slay the Raikage's concubine, who was with child. She was ten years old, her growth already stunted by malnourishment from living on the streets. _

_Orochimaru-sama had taught her to use her flute, her only memento given to her by her mother, as a weapon in battle. It was the greatest gift the man had ever given her; a chance to use her mother's gift in combat, allowing her mother to protect her and fight with her._

_It was laughably easy to infiltrate the village; a small child holding a flute raised no eyebrows, simply one of many street children returning from outside the village where they had foraged for food. The mountains where Kumogakure was hidden were rife with shrubs that produced berries, some for poison, and others for food. One only had to brave the gaping chasms and breathtaking falls to get to them._

_A small child playing a flute gathered no attention, something reinforced by the genjutsu woven around the child. She was easily able to make her way to the inner sections of the village, playing the appearance of a wandering street urchin._

_She hid inside the concubine's home, as the Raikage was far too important to provide lodging, especially for his whore. The political backlash from someone discovering her existence would be debilitating, after all, and the Raikage was already treading on egg shells after the Hyuuga Kidnapping debacle._

_The woman returned at nightfall, smelling of sweat, sex, and alcohol. Her stomach was only slightly swollen, appearing to be bloated rather than with child. As soon as the woman stepped in the door, the child's breath caught and the illusion broke._

_Dark red hair spilled over the woman's thin shoulders, having been pulled from the bun used to hold it up. A pretty face set in peach skin looked out over a straight nose, and pale blue eyes settled on the form of the child. The pretty face twisted into an expression of shock and fear, riddled with regret as her eyes began tearing up. Babbled apologies spilled from the woman's full lips, even as the child raised the flute to her own, thinner, set._

_With a broken expression on her face, the child spoke but one sentence._

"_Orochimaru-sama wishes to have you killed."_

_The woman, now crying in anguish, rushed forward to pull the child into an embrace, wanting to do something, anything, to reassure the child that they were still loved. Halfway to the child, she was halted, kneeling on the ground with both arms held perpendicular to her body. _

_Musical notes from the flute perpetuated the illusion, halting and stuttering though they were. The woman was but a civilian, however, and was unable to resist the call of the flute. The woman's pretty face warped into an expression of pain and horror, mouth open in a soundless scream. The child slowly stood, halting her music as she pulled a small knife out of a holster high on her thigh underneath her shorts. _

_Blood spilled onto the floor of the house, punctuated by the angry cries of the child as she carved into the body, ruining her pretty face and ripping out her lovely red hair. Pent up anger was released in a method that defied all training, wanting nothing more than to utterly destroy all that the woman had been. A tantrum augmented by the knife in her hand left the woman dead, her body and face mutilated beyond recognition._

_Orochimaru-sama was most pleased with her, and offered an amused smile and a pat on her head for her performance._

_Tayuya had never been so sickened by her master._

Tayuya's body was slung over Kabuto's shoulder, the deadline having come up. Deep within the body, her consciousness was stirring. The gray haired man continued his ranting; expressing his deep regrets at having not had more time with her, as he was sure he had made a breakthrough in medicine by repairing the nerves.

He expressed his anger, as well, that she had to be catatonic. He was so _sure _that he could have gotten her back into fighting capability if she had just been _awake_ and actually _trying_ to succeed!

* * *

"_Oi! Bitch!" Sakon's voice snapped Tayuya out of her reverie, washing the blood off of her body in the communal showers shared by the Sound Four._

"_The fuck do you want, faggot? I don't have any makeup to spare; I need that shit for infiltration, and it's being wasted by making you look pretty!"_

_The gray haired fourteen year old looked almost offended, though his expression turned serious, halting the banter._

"_I want you to promise me something, Tayuya."_

Winding through the underground compound formerly used as Orochimaru's base, Kabuto came to the room devoted to the seal that Orochimaru had been creating. Shifting Tayuya on his shoulder, he opened the door.

_Knowing that her comrade had never called her by name unless it was something they couldn't afford to argue about, Tayuya's expression shifted into guarded distrust._

"_What is it?"_

The gray haired man dropped the kunoichi onto the center of the seal. The seal itself was five feet in diameter, and if she were laid out straight, she would almost reach the edges with her head and feet. The five foot in diameter circle was inlaid with hundreds of thousands of meaningless arcane scribbles, all working together to form the seal itself. By themselves, they were nothing, but together they were a working unit devoted to one task.

The irony was not lost on Kabuto. Tayuya, one of the Sound Four, was worthless without her comrades who had worked together as a unit to be Orochimaru's vanguard, his elite.

He began channeling chakra into the array, lighting up the symbols one by one.

"_If you ever get the chance, kill that Kabuto prick for us would you?"_

_Ukon had spoken, cementing the belief that it was a serious matter; the elder brother slept the majority of the time, only awakening if his brother needed him._

The body stirred, instinctively recognizing a large amount of chakra being used nearby, rolling over to face Kabuto, who was at the edge of the array. Her arms lifted slowly, unseen by the medic-nin as he was concentrated fully on the seal array.

"_Fine."_

Bony hands grasped Kabuto's shirt as the last inscription was lit up with chakra. With a tug, she pulled the man into the array with her; brown eyes awake, conscious, and vindictive. The broken flute clattered to the floor outside of the array as she spoke, her voice a hoarse rasp.

"I promised."

The seal initiated its function, pulling Tayuya in. She disappeared in a puff of smoke, while Kabuto, half inside and half outside the array, was torn apart. The top half of his body disappeared with the kunoichi.

Blood sprayed from the torn bottom half, erasing the seal array with a deluge of red liquid.

* * *

Being transported by seal was probably the strangest sensation Tayuya had ever felt. It wasn't a true feeling, more of an absolute lack of sensation. Nothing to see, smell, hear, feel, taste. Her body was paralyzed, eyes unseeing, until she gasped for air, inhaling smoke as she reappeared in a puff of smoke.

She coughed several times, looking down at the fabric still clutched in her hands, and coming face to face with the lifeless gaze of Yakushi Kabuto. A stilted smile pulled at the edges of her lips, breaking open the chapped lips and causing a small amount of blood to well up. With practiced movements, she made sure of his lifelessness by twisting his neck, listening for the loud crack. She was satisfied only when she had turned his head a full one hundred and eighty degrees.

She would have stabbed him for good measure, but she had no weapon on her body.

Taking note of her surroundings, she realized she was within a dense forest, and things were skittering and moving just beyond her sensory range. Taking one last contemptuous look at the deceased medic-nin, she began to pull herself on her stomach towards the nearest tree.

She had very little chakra, but she persevered, hauling her paraplegic body to the trunk of the tree through sheer determination and augmenting her upper body strength with chakra.

Exhausted, both mentally and physically, she rested her back against the tree trunk and fell into a dreamless healing coma.

* * *

She was awakened by the intrusion of a living being upon her personal space, a roughly fifteen foot radius around her. It had served her well in the barracks, forcing her awake when someone came too close for comfort, and allowing her to enact retribution on whoever had been stupid enough to try something. It would have been larger, but fifteen feet was as far as she could get from her teammates in their shared lodging, and it was frowned upon to harm her squad-mates. That didn't stop her from doing it if they tried something, however.

She looked up, her eyebrows pulling together in a confused scowl at what had pulled her from her sleep.

It looked like a wolf. A rather large wolf. And it was accompanied by the biggest bee she had ever seen. The wolf's eyes were a sickly shade of yellow, reminding her of her Cursed Seal form, and it was frothing at the mouth. Similarly, the bee's stinger was at least three inches long, and it was focused completely on her.

She could sense the hostility they had for her, but it wasn't a focused hostility found in ninja summons (which were the only things she could imagine such oversized animals could be). Instead, it was hostility against all life besides them, driving them to attack anything and everything besides each other. They advanced slowly, watching her every move with bestial intelligence.

She glanced down at herself, shifting minutely to check for any hidden weapons Kabuto might have left on her. There was nothing, and she was clothed only in a hospital gown, which would explain why the bark of the tree behind her was digging into the flesh of her back without cloth to protect it.

'_Unarmed, emaciated, and without proper clothing. Hmph. I blame the rat for this. Him and his wind-bitch.'_

Her mouth curled into a humorless smile, causing her lip to bleed again. She dabbed the bleeding lip with her thumb, moving her bony hands into a series of familiar seals.

"**Kuchiyose: Doki. (Summoning: Angry Demons)"**

She only had enough chakra for one of the Doki, so she chose to summon the one most capable of helping her. A large puff of smoke hid the appearance of the ogre, which dispersed momentarily. The appearance of the twenty foot tall monstrosity caused the overgrown bee and wolf to pause, but only for a moment. Taking it for a hostile action, they attacked.

Tayuya hummed an odd melody under her breath, controlling the movements of her summon through the musical notes coupled with chakra.

The ogre had a head of long, dark grey hair that obscured its features, its hunched appearance causing the hair to fall over its face and down its chest to its stomach. A set of loose black clothing obscured most of its skin, though its hands and feet were bare, showing grey, mottled skin. It held a heavy iron warclub dotted with blunted spikes, a single rung of a chain attached to the hilt, which had been wrapped in white cloth. Around its waist was a section of purple rope, tied into a knot in the back; a symbol to show that it served Tayuya, who, in turn, served Orochimaru.

The summoned ogre heaved the club into its arms, smashing the wolf with a downward strike. The wolf died with a pathetic whimper that was all but drowned out by the crunch of bones being smashed into pulp. The bee flung its stinger, stabbing the ogre in the chest, something that caused no reaction. The bee was quickly disposed of by a backhanded slap, the warclub being too heavy to move quickly enough.

The notes of music coaxed the ogre to pick up the kunoichi, settling her on its shoulder with her useless legs resting on its chest. Obeying her whims expressed through her humming, it plucked the stinger from its chest and handed it to her; a makeshift knife for the time being. With a note, the summon leapt to the tree tops to allow Tayuya to view the surrounding area for civilization.

Picking out a house nearby, she continued humming her song.

The ogre quickly dropped to the ground, using inhuman speed to navigate the forests according to its summoner's directions. It only paused for a moment to obliterate the corpse of Kabuto with a swing of its warclub, fulfilling its mistress' paranoia. They weren't unfounded fears, given that the medic-nin was well known for surviving mortal injuries through his regeneration ability, but there was no way for him to regenerate now that his skull had been caved in.

Tayuya's chakra was steadily running out, her withered body unable to contain as much of the energy as it used to. Her atrophied muscles lowered the speed of her chakra regeneration, and she hadn't started with full reserves when she had woken up. The Doki was able to get her to the walkway of the house before she ran dangerously low on chakra. The door of the house was opening just as she dismissed the summon with a murmured command.

"Tai. (Ill will or malice)"

* * *

Dirk the Dwarf was not an unkind being by any means. In fact, just three years prior he had taken in a three year old human child at the behest of his dying mother after the two of them had fallen off a cliff! However, Dirk was very protective of things he considered to be his own, including the adopted child as well as his home.

He had looked out the window, as the forest was silent, which denoted an intruder that scared off the birds and other animals. He was shocked to see a twenty foot tall humanoid monstrosity with a small, emaciated girl on its shoulder. Swiftly grabbing his warhammer, he exited the house just in time to see the girl mumble something, causing the monster to disperse in a plume of smoke, dropping her to the ground. He was able to hear a grunt of pain as she landed on her back, legs flopping uselessly to the ground soon after. Her brown eyes clouded over with impending unconsciousness, and he hurried to her side.

He was noticeably disturbed by her glassy-eyed stare when her arm moved in an instinctive maneuver to bare a short needle in a defensive gesture. If memory served him correctly, it was actually the stinger of one of the bee monsters nearby, and she was threatening him with it, even on the cusp of unconsciousness!

He waited for a few moments, and was not surprised when she slumped into oblivion, the needle still held in her grip. With as much care as a blacksmith could, he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder, praising Martel that the girl was short enough that her feet or head didn't drag on the ground due to his own short stature.

He placed her in a hastily made makeshift bed near the forge in the living room and went upstairs to warn Lloyd about the potentially dangerous houseguest.

* * *

Author's Note: The inspiration struck me, especially with the dialogue of Tales of Symphonia. At one point, Kratos and Raine are discussing their group, saying that nobody was really prepared for the Journey of Regeneration. After all, Raine was just a schoolteacher, Kratos just a mercenary, Lloyd and Colette were just students, and Genis was just a kid. And I wondered...what would it be like if there WAS someone prepared for the Journey? An assassin...a trained killer. Which brought me back to Naruto. But instead of Naruto himself (he's just too softhearted to kill people in cold blood), I decided to use one of the other characters. I toyed with the idea of Kurenai, but figured people would investigate her disappearance. Then, running on a tangent of I-Want-Genjutsu, I went to Tayuya.

I will be actively trying to make this fic rather morbid, as opposed to the lighthearted dialogue of the game. To punctuate this, I fabricated Tayuya's background. Since there wasn't much of her in the manga or anime to create a full personality profile, I will be running off an amalgam of Asuka Langley Sorhyu's anger, unwillingness to accept help, and broken background mixed with Tayuya's shown habits, and what I'd imagine a specially trained kunoichi would do. There will be a ten year timeskip in the next chapter.


	2. It Begins

"Talking"

'_Thinking'/Illusion/Remembrance_

"**Spell/Technique"**

**

* * *

**It Begins

When Tayuya first regained consciousness, she was struck by how warm she felt. This was closely followed by the sensation of heavy cloth on flesh, prompting her to open her eyes and realize she was wrapped up in a bundle of blankets, her head laying on an old fashioned down pillow. She felt momentary disgust at her unclean appearance, but pushed it out of her mind as her brown gaze locked on the diminutive humanoid working at the forge nearby.

He couldn't have been over four feet tall, and had brown hair in a mohawk that swept upwards in front. His arms were heavily muscled, and his beard and body proportions showed that he was fully grown, regardless of his height.

It was at this point that the events of the previous few days caught up with Tayuya, and she couldn't help the bitter laugh that forced itself from her throat. She had been catatonic, lost her mother's only memento back in the Oto (Sound) base, and killed Kabuto, the sadistic bastard of a medic. Then she had been transported via experimental seal to…wherever she was, and had to fight off an overgrown bee and wolf with her Doki (Angry Demons).

She suspected that the house she had collapsed in front of had been owned by this humanoid.

She began gathering chakra for an illusion, only for the humanoid to turn to her with a hard glint in his eyes.

"Best ye be haltin' your castin', girl. I won't have any fightin' in my house."

She immediately let go of her chakra, letting it settle back into her body. She gave the man a Look, causing him to stiffen at the unconcealed intent to kill in her eyes, before relaxing. Her voice was hoarse with disuse when she spoke.

"Whatever. You have me at your mercy, what do you want?"

The man blinked at her surrender, calling out in a shout directed towards the stairwell.

"Oi, Lloyd! Fetch me enough hot water to fill the bath!"

A small child's head of brown hair popped into view from the stairwell, and the kid, no older than six, nodded his assent and rushed out the door. The man turned back to her, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Yer not from around here, girl."

The redhead gave him another pointed look, an unsaid 'you just noticed?' in her eyes. She kept her silence, however, letting her gaze roam around the small house. Dirk watched her movements closely, noting how her gaze raked across anything that could be used as a weapon, and the calculating tilt of the head… _as if she were assessing the danger of her situation_.

"I propose an exchange of questions. I'll answer yers if ye answer mine."

Tayuya raised her head to look at him in the eyes, weighing her options before nodding her assent. The dwarf grabbed a crafted stone mug off a shelf and filled it from a covered bucket of cold water, handing her the mug. Tayuya drank slowly, allowing the water to moisten her throat. Her first question was a demand.

"I need to see a map, and I need to know where I am."

A bushy brown eyebrow rose in surprise, but the dwarf followed her demand, retrieving a parchment map, as well as pointing out the dot marked as 'Iselia' on it. The kunoichi considered the map for a moment, checking to see if it was a fake. The lack of forgery disturbed her, but only temporarily. A shinobi was forced to adapt to all sorts of situations, after all, and this was just the newest in a long line of them. Her verbal response prompted another raised brow.

"Well. Isn't this fuckin' peachy. Fuck you, Orochimaru-sama, and your shiteating lackeys, too. Fuck. You."

The soft footfalls outside denoted the return of the child, prompting Dirk to speak up.

"I'll ask ye to not curse in my house; there's a young 'un around."

The redhead grudgingly acquiesced to the demand. It would not do well to anger the person she could get information from when he could probably snap her like a twig in her atrophied state. The only other possibility would be to hold the kid hostage and demand answers, but that would likely end in a bad way. This possibility, that of an exchange of information, was high up on the 'best possible scenarios' for this situation. After all, according to the map, she wasn't in the Elemental Countries anymore. Orochimaru couldn't kill her here.

"What was that monster that carried ye here, girl?"

"It was one of my three Doki. I summon them and control them."

"Summoning? Those arts were lost for centuries!"

"I'm not from around here, remember?"

Their discussion continued as the young child, Lloyd, continued his trips to and from the well, bringing buckets of water which he heated over a fire and tossed into a large washtub made out of polished wood.

The questions were surface things, such as asking Tayuya what she did for a living ("I'm a maid") and vice versa. Tayuya recognized the dwarf wanting to hold off on the deeper questions until after the kid went to bed, and respected it, bowing her will to him as the superior in this situation.

Getting _into_ the washtub was quite an affair. Tayuya refused to ask for help, dragging herself bodily into the tub, using a version of the Water Walking exercise on her hands to allow her to grip the water as if it were solid and pull herself in. The hospital gown was eagerly thrown away as a curtain was put up, and the questioning continued as the kunoichi cleansed herself of over a month's collection of dirt and grime, compounded by what she had collected in her last mission.

She was given a robe of worn cloth to wear, not being able to fit into either the dwarf's or the child's clothing.

* * *

As soon as night fell, the heavier questions were asked.

"What is it ye do for real, girl?"

"I am a kunoichi, a trained assassin."

This alarmed Dirk, though he didn't let it show.

"What can you tell me of this world?"

Dirk took a moment to gather his thoughts, then explained a compact version of Sylvarant's history. There was a goddess, called Martel, who 'slumbered in the center of the world'. An organization of half-elves, called Desians, harassed, pillaged, and generally acted as antagonists to the humans, and their bases were located in 'Human Ranches' where they raised humans for an unknown purpose. Iselia had a non-aggression pact with the nearest Human Ranch, and as long as no citizen trespassed, they wouldn't attack Iselia.

He expounded on the Journey of Regeneration that the Chosen would start on her sixteenth birthday. How it would regenerate the world that was withering away due to a 'mana shortage', causing crops to fail, lands to deteriorate, and population to decline. He wasn't sure of any other history besides that, as it was all 'human history', something he had no interest in as a dwarf.

His return question caused Tayuya to hesitate for a few moments.

"Yer turn, girl. History of your land and how ye came here."

Taking a drink of water from the stone mug, the redhead began her tale.

"I was never good at history, since it's a waste of time. My land is constantly in a cold war that breaks out into skirmishes and hidden wars constantly. There are five main powers, the hidden ninja villages, each in a country named after a main element. Sunagakure (Hidden in the Sand), Konohagakure (Hidden in the Leaves), Kirigakure (Hidden in the Mist), Iwagakure (Hidden in the Stones), and Kumogakure (Hidden in the Clouds). I was a street urchin from Kumo, and taken in by Orochimaru. He created Otogakure (Hidden in the Sound). I was one of his five elite soldiers, and our most recent mission was to attack Konohagakure, a village that Orochimaru has a grudge against."

She took another slow drink of the water to wet her throat before continuing.

"Konoha is the strongest of the villages, and treats its soldiers as family. Orochimaru hated that. He attacked the leader, the Hokage, while my squad-mates and I enclosed them in a barrier to prevent people from interfering. Orochimaru won, but he lost the use of his arms due to some weird technique. We retreated. Soon after, we retrieved Sasuke Uchiha, a kid whose body Orochimaru wanted to possess. On the way back to Oto, Konoha sent a squad of genin, kids barely out of the academy, after us. We kept leaving someone behind to deal with the brats, but they kept winning. I got left behind to deal with a Nara, a shadow controlling rat of a kid. Would've killed him, too, except that reinforcements came from Sunagakure. Stupid girl and her weasel summon destroyed the forest we were fighting in, and I was buried. Kabuto picked me up and took me back to the base, and tried to restore my ability to move my legs. I was catatonic, but he succeeded. I just have to relearn how to walk. Orochimaru had a deadline, though; I had to be ready to fight in a month or I'd be used to test a seal array. I didn't make the deadline, and took Kabuto with me when he activated the seal, killing him. I ended up in the forest nearby."

Dirk slowly mulled the information over in his mind, letting the redhead soothe her parched throat.

* * *

They talked well into the night, though the girl never told him of her past, nor did she explain how she was trained or why she hated Orochimaru and Kabuto so much.

They came to an agreement; Tayuya would stay and relearn how to walk, but she had to teach Lloyd rudimentary self defense. Dirk didn't dare ask her to pass on her profession to Lloyd, as he didn't want the child to end up like she did. The redhead had some reservations, and added some stipulations; she would need a house. If Dirk would help her with the blueprints and directing construction, she would use her Doki to build a house nearby. In return, she would keep Dirk's house clear of all monsters.

There were only a few ground rules to her stay in Dirk's house. She wasn't allowed to curse, she wasn't allowed to summon her Doki unless Dirk was the only one around, and she wasn't allowed to take hostile action. If any of the three rules were broken, Dirk would kick her out of his house, and would kill her if she appeared near his house again.

Progress was much faster in returning movement to her legs, and she was up and about in just four weeks. She stumbled and was uncoordinated, but she was at least walking. It took only a day to get her house built, as she didn't care for lavish decorating. The walls were built by interlocking fallen tree trunks, the roof thatched, and there was only a wooden bed and wooden washtub for furnishings.

She established a professional relationship with the dwarf, though it was strained by the knowledge that she was a professional killer. He couldn't help his instincts to protect Lloyd from her. Both were quite gruff in dealing with each other, and it brought a sense of familiarity to Tayuya, who grudgingly welcomed it.

She visited Dirk roughly once every four months to commission kunai and shuriken from him to replace those that she had broken in keeping monsters away from his house. After her third visit, he gave her a gift; a masterfully crafted metal flute. Her thanks were stiff, but genuine.

Every so often, she would visit Iselia, pawning off interesting monster parts for money; coins called Gald. The villagers apparently found the pelts from the monster rabbits to be quite fetching, and they sold quite handsomely. She used her earnings to purchase books on music as well as generic history books so that if she had to visit other areas, she wouldn't stand out as a foreigner.

At her home, she refined and practiced her combat skills, bringing her taijutsu and ninjutsu up from their abysmal levels. Since she was no longer specializing in genjutsu at the cost of everything else, she was able to cultivate her wind and lightning affinities, though she focused on wind. Through trial and error, she was able to create her own techniques. Her Cursed Seal was left alone as the consequences of utilizing it were quite dire, dissuading her from relying upon it.

* * *

Ten years later…

When the horizon lit up in a bright light, rivaling that of a star in the daytime, Tayuya chose to visit the village.

'_Today is the day of…Prophecy? Whatever. Let's go see what this is all about.'_

The twenty four year old woman had not grown much in the ten year gap, years of malnutrition in her childhood forever stunting her growth. She stood at 5'5", rather short for her genetics, with her dark red hair falling to the top of her shoulderblades in back, and to equal length in front. She wore a leather skullcap-like helm, plastering her hair to her head and preventing it from moving too much, even in high winds. The cap was a dark, mottled grey, perfect for blending in the shifting shadows of a forest.

Her clothes were odd by Sylvarant's standards, but perfect for her work. A mottled grey hard leather breastplate protected her upper chest, worn over a softer brown leather undergarment that prevented her skin from being irritated by the armor. The undergarment took the shape of a tank top, leaving her arms bare for optimal movement range.

Mottled grey hard leather pads protected her thighs, worn over a pale grey set of loose cloth pants. Her shoes were a sensible sort of slipper, keeping her ankle free for movement and keeping her footsteps soft. The slipper itself was made of leather.

Underneath her thigh pads, she kept a holster for a single kunai on each thigh. On the back of her right hip, she carried a round, grey leather holster for kunai, shuriken, and her flute.

With a leap, she alighted on a branch of a tree. Directing chakra to her legs, she contained it within her body and let it enhance her muscles, causing her to disappear from civilian eyesight in a blur.

* * *

Iselia…

She arrived in Iselia to find it abandoned. All the doors were closed and locked, and the general atmosphere was one of suspense. Taking refuge in a building's shadow, she peered around the corner.

Near the exit to the path leading towards the Temple of Martel, there were two humanoid figures as well as a floating amorphous figure loitering about. The kunoichi leapt to the rooftops and closed in, not recognizing the figures from a distance. She stopped roughly a hundred feet away, and was able to see details on them.

There were two zombies and a ghost sitting around. Without a living being in sight, they had no drive to destroy, and simply waited for one to arrive.

Slowly, a cruel smile slipped onto her face. As a child, she had been instructed to channel all the hate, rage, pain, and fear of normal day-to-day life into fighting as a kunoichi. As long as she could direct it and not be controlled by it, it would prevent her from hesitating, and would make her want to go for the kill rather than incapacitate.

Retrieving the two kunai from her thigh holsters, she sprinted forward and leapt off a house. As she fell from the sky, she spun while upside down and released the kunai at the end of the spin, enhancing them with the centripetal force from the spin. The two knives sliced through the air, burying themselves up to the hilt in the necks of the two zombies and dropping them like broken puppets.

She dropped to the ground roughly ten feet away from the ghost, which summoned a mallet from thin air and advanced upon her. Her hands moved into an easy set of three seals as she whispered her technique.

"**Raiton: Denki Kutsuu. (Lightning Element: Electric Pain)"**

With the vicious smile on her face, she shoved her hand inside the semi-solid ghost, amplifying the monster's natural electricity stored within its nervous system. The electrical overload over stimulated its nerve endings to cause immense pain and finally fried its brain, killing it after several seconds of torture. Had it been fully solid, its internal organs would have suffered some light scorching, as well.

As the ghost's eyes (a strange color of green) glossed over in death, she removed her hand. She swept her gaze over the corpses, retrieving her knives and snapping the necks of the zombies for good measure, having sliced their spinal cord but unsure if they'd still live.

She turned to investigate the rest of the town, but was halted when a blonde man with casual clothing and a worried expression exited one of the nearest houses. She adopted a relaxed stance, returning her knives to their holsters and gazing lazily at the man.

The man approached her warily, wringing his hands in obvious anxiety.

"Excuse me, miss? Are you a mercenary?"

Tayuya raised her gaze to the man's own, keeping her thoughts to herself as she nodded her assent.

'_Why do I have to be the short one?'_

The blonde dug in his pocket for a coin purse, which he offered with a hesitant smile on his face.

"I'm willing to pay you a hefty sum of money if you guard my daughter. She's the Chosen, you see, and I worry for her safety on the Journey of Regeneration."

Tayuya plucked the rather large coin purse out of the man's hand, rifling through it for a moment. The total came out to three thousand Gald, a large amount to offer up at once.

'_On one hand, it's the equivalent of three of those monster rabbit hides. On the other hand…I get to find new monsters, possibly people, to kill. Oh, and I get to save the world like all little boys and girls dream of doing. Decisions, decisions…'_

Despite her scorn of the lofty dream of 'saving the world', she accepted the task.

'_It'll be a mission; escort the kid, kill the threats. Simple.'_

"Thank you so much, miss! Colette is currently headed towards the Temple of Martel with two of her friends. She's blonde, one of her friends is a male brunette, and they have an elf with them. He has blue-silver hair. You can't miss them!"

With a humorless grin, she bowed out of reflex and held up a hand in a single seal. She disappeared in a puff of smoke, denoting a **Shunshin no Jutsu (Body Flicker Technique)**.

* * *

Arms limp to the side to preserve energy, she moved at a steady pace across the flatlands towards the temple. She arrived within minutes, and slowly ascended the staircase.

'_Something doesn't feel right. I should have caught those kids on the way, and there's something up with the temple.'_

A wounded Pastor made his way painfully down the stairway, and she caught up with him. Her mind quickly analyzed his wound as being run through with a short, wide, but thin bladed weapon, and that he had very little time to live. A part of her heart, blackened by cruelty, relished in the fact that she had no medic training and that she wouldn't be able to keep him alive. The rest of her heart was impassive to his impending death.

"D-Desians! They attacked…the temple…!"

A scornful expression settled on her face, and she lifted the Pastor by the front of his ornamental robes.

"Is the Chosen inside?"

The Pastor, afraid of her strength even when near death, replied.

"No, I haven't seen the Chosen yet. Please help the rest of the priests!"

Tayuya turned towards the temple and took off in a burst of speed, leaving the Pastor bleeding at the foot of the stairway.

She arrived at the entrance of the temple to see two humanoid men with armor and helmets threatening an elderly woman wearing ceremonial robes. A man with spiked hair and pointed ears wearing a one sleeved gray robe and metal greaves turned to her with an irritated look on his face.

"You! Where is the Chosen?"

Tayuya smirked, her right hand slipping into her pouch and retrieving her flute as she gathered chakra.

"I have no idea, asshole. Are you and your men threats to the Chosen?"

One of the helmeted lackeys drew his weapon, even as the unhelmeted man barked an order.

"Hmph. The Chosen and her ilk will all die. Vidarr! Take care of her!"

With his command issued, the half-elf retreated. Tayuya pondered on the merits of taking him down before he got too far away, but the blackened part of her heart let her let him go, wanting a challenge later on in the Journey. She returned her attention to the two henchmen, hearing heavy footfalls coming from inside the temple.

A heavily muscled man, easily eight feet tall, exited the gloom of the temple. He wore a metal helm with elephantine tusks jutting out of it, a green short sleeved shirt underneath a silver breastplate, black leather shorts that went to his knees, and metal greaves. In his left hand he held a large warhammer, and in his right, a flail.

The expression on Tayuya's face turned vicious as she raised the flute to her mouth. Chakra resonated through the air, carried by musical notes as the name of the technique blossomed in her mind.

'_**Mateki: Mugen'onsa (Demon Flute: Dream Sound Chain)**__, a classic way to die.'_

There was no hesitation as the haunting flute music surrounded the targets, her chakra only affecting them even as the elderly woman behind, and the mortally wounded pastor below were able to hear the music.

_The sky bled orange-red as the three half-elves rested on a mountain of bones. Each looked toward the others, surprised and afraid as they felt the sun beating down upon their exposed skin. Wires, originating from somewhere in the bloody sunset sky, ran directly into their arms, holding them perpendicular to their kneeling bodies. They tried to move, but the wires held them completely immobile. _

_It started burning._

_Their armor and flesh became liquid, dripping off their arms, exposing the muscular structure underneath with agonizing sluggishness. All three screamed in pain as their flesh melted away, their faces screwed up in agony and horror._

The red haired woman's face reflected her cruel glee, channeling pent up hate and rage into the illusion, making it stronger, more real. She was able to see, from her position some distance away from the kneeling captives, the skin on Vidarr's arm begin to redden in psychosomatic sympathetic pain.

Regulating her breathing as she was taught to do when playing her flute, her keen hearing caught the sound of footsteps at the bottom of the stairwell. She distinctly heard the voice of a small boy, a teenage girl, and a slightly older teenage boy.

'_Perfect. The Chosen finally arrives. Where the hell was she? Fucking around in a forest?'_

Unwilling to let her captives go, she decided that she would make a good first impression. After all, if they fear her power, then they would be more likely to listen to her in times of battle or stress. With a flare of chakra to catch their interest, she deepened the illusion. She accurately tracked the progress of the sympathetic pain by the flesh on Vidarr's arm.

She watched it gradually blacken as necrosis set in from being constantly irritated. She could hear the three getting closer, but her eyes were riveted on the bulky man's arm, watching the flesh crack as pus leaked out of the corroding tissue.

Phaidra hadn't moved in the past few minutes, too shocked and horrified by the brutality taking place _right in front of her_ to move. The sight of her granddaughter appearing, however, brought her out of her trance.

"Colette! I'm so glad you're safe! Desians attacked the temple, but this young woman…stopped…them."

Her joy noticeably drained off towards the end as her attention was brought back to the huge man's arms, which were now bleeding a mixture of red blood and yellow pus.

Tayuya cast her eyes towards the Chosen, affirming the familial resemblance to the blonde she had met in the village. Her identity confirmed, she brought the flute away from her mouth, though the genjutsu would continue for a few moments yet.

"You're the Chosen, right?"

The bubbly blonde _chirped_ in reply.

"Yes! I'm Colette! Pleased to meet you, miss…?"

The redhead strolled over to one of the henchmen, snapping his neck with a loud crack, moving on to the next and repeating the gesture. She returned the greeting with indifference as she continued 'working'.

"Tayuya. I was hired to protect you by your father."

_Within the scorching world, Vidarr could only distantly realize his comrades had disappeared. His arms had melted down to the bone, which was steadily bubbling and beginning to liquefy as well. A bone arose from the mountain, floating in front of the tortured half-elf. It sharpened itself into a stake and plunged directly into his heart, not slowing in the slightest as it pierced his chest._

The half-elf collapsed in the real world, his heart stopping from the sympathetic pain from the illusion. It began beating after a few moments, though the lack of oxygen in the brain forced him into unconsciousness.

Turning back to her charge, Tayuya assessed the Chosen and her companions.

Colette. Long, blonde hair, blue eyes, and a painfully optimistic expression. Reminded her of an urchin brat from so long ago. The girl was holding onto two golden rings which gleamed with an edge. Chakrams. Her outfit was white edged in purple, a short over-robe worn over purple leggings with white shoes also carrying purple trimming. Slim, muscles not very defined.

Mystery number one. Dark blue eyes, silver-blue hair, naturally spiky, ending just above his shoulders and _hiding his ears_. Carrying a…kendama? (wooden mallet with a wooden ball attached via string) The kid fought with a child's playtoy? He wore a blue jumpsuit with short sleeves and legs. The loose jumpsuit was offset by a slightly longer tight black shirt underneath it, as well as equally tight black leggings, probably to preserve warmth. No muscle definition.

Mystery number two. Brown eyes, windswept spiky brown hair. _Painfully _eye catching bright red shirt with many, _many_ buttons. Well made, however. Red leather gloves, a blue gem set in golden metal on the left hand. Blue overalls with leather for straps, also very well made. Red leather boots. A ribbon in the collar of the red shirt ended in two 'tails' in back. Two well made leather belts held two sword holsters, one on each side, which were currently occupied with wooden bokken (practice swords). Definite muscle definition, roughly that of a 'fit' person, but still a far cry from physical perfection.

'_That's a lot of red.'_

It wasn't a particularly intelligent thought, but it was quite…obvious.

Soft footsteps alerted Tayuya of another arrival, one who immediately drove a longsword through Vidarr's neck.

"You missed one; he was still alive."

Unwilling to admit she had missed it, having quit listening for a heartbeat after the first few seconds, the redhead rounded on the newcomer.

"Damnit, I wasn't finished with that fucker!"

The newcomer actually blinked once in surprise at the outburst, his deep voice echoing her statement with confusion.

"You weren't…finished with him?"

The redhead 'lamented her woes' at the man, a tinge of fake pride in her voice as she assessed him as a threat.

"Monsters around here are too stupid to appreciate my music; I can only use it on intelligent, rational beings, dumbass!"

The man had spiky brown hair that covered his left eye, the right being a reddish-brown. He was rather tall, compared to the shorter, and still growing, other three. He clothed himself in long blue-purple leggings and a matching vest. Matching arm warmers covered his arms from mid-upper arm to wrist, ending at pale lavender fingerless gloves. Two matching pale lavender belts covered his stomach, and smaller versions of the belts covered his mid-shin. His feet were protected by what looked to be metal plated boots, but they disappeared into his leggings, preventing Tayuya from properly identifying them. On his waist, his longsword was sheathed to the left side. On top of his mostly-purple ensemble was a matching blue-purple swallow-tailed cloak with _matching pale lavender interior_.

It actually caused Tayuya's eye to twitch.

'_Purple. Overwhelming.'_

The man casually looked over her, giving her a calculating once-over to assess her capabilities as a warrior, having caught her doing the same to him. She had to at least give him credit for that, as he was at least observant enough to know when he was being assessed as a target.

The man introduced his purpose, withholding his name as it seemed the redhead wasn't going to introduce herself.

"I am a mercenary."

Tayuya brought her flute back to bare, brown eyes narrowed.

"Were you hired to eliminate the Chosen?"

The man held up both hands in an expression of peace, explaining.

"No. I had heard the commotion from nearby and was going to offer my services."

Phaidra, who had been unnerved and extremely disturbed by the brutal and bloodthirsty woman her son had hired to protect her granddaughter, quickly spoke up.

"Please, I would be worried about Colette with just Tayuya protecting her. May I hire you to protect the Chosen as well?"

The man accepted the task, his eyes wandering over the Chosen's companions, though they settled on Mystery Number Two and widened with shock. The expression was quickly hidden, though Tayuya noticed it, filing it in her mind for later.

"Grandmother, I am going to undergo the trial and accept the Oracle!"

Colette chose this moment to speak up, catching Tayuya's attention. Phaidra nodded her head indulgently at her chipper granddaughter, moving out of the way to allow entrance to the temple.

"Very well, Colette. Tayuya, sir, I hope you guard my granddaughter well. The world depends on it, after all."

Mystery Number Two broke in at this point.

"Hey! I'm going, too! I won't let Colette go by herself with those two."

Tayuya leveled a disinterested stare at him, while the mercenary made his displeasure verbally known.

"You will only be a burden. Go home."

The blonde girl, looking vaguely apologetic and nervous, toed the floor as she piped up.

"Um…sir? Could Lloyd and Genis come? They're my friends, and they're pretty good in a fight."

The warrior blinked in surprise again.

"Lloyd? Your name is Lloyd?"

"Yeah, but who are you to ask my name?"

Tayuya's disinterest quickly evaporated due to bubbling irritation. Her fingers twitched, wanting to belt the boy over the head for his arrogance. The mercenary looked irritated, replying without changing his indifferent tone.

"I am Kratos. If you're coming with us, at least make yourself useful. What do you say...Tayuya, was it?"

The redhead blinked once, casting a dispassionate stare over both the small boy and the teenager armed with bokken. She shrugged her shoulders, turning to head into the temple.

"If your stupidity kills you, I'm not burying you."

The group of five turned towards the dark halls of the temple, readying their weapons as they entered.

* * *

Author's Note: I have discovered that I enjoy the needless cruelty. For those of you readers who are religious, may the Lord have mercy on Tayuya's enemies' souls, because she'll keep her cruelty towards sentient humanoid targets. After all, they're the only ones who can 'fully appreciate her music', and none have ever survived her melodies.


	3. Dissonance

"Talking"

'_Thinking'/Illusion/Remembrance_

"**Spell/Technique"**

* * *

Dissonance

The temple did not seem holy at all on the inside. It all looked desolate rather than welcoming; faded inscriptions on the walls in a language that Tayuya couldn't decipher, broken and crumbling stonework. Sounds of claws scratching the floor as well as shuffling footsteps echoed through the dim atmosphere, providing constant reminder of the monsters currently infesting the temple.

Both mercenaries were able to understand the body language of the three children; confusion, awe, and tension. Likely, the children had been expecting pristine walls with soft white light and they were confused by the appearance. Colette, however, had body language denoting firm determination as well as underlying sadness. Tayuya was confused at the sadness and as all shinobi knew…

'_Information is a weapon. Use it, wield it, and guard it.'_

A sound, a curious amalgam of snarl and gurgle, snapped the children to attention. A knife was buried up to the hilt in the head of a zombie that had been waiting at the corner. They watched, almost entranced, as the zombie crumpled to the floor and the red haired mercenary pulled the strange knife out of the monster's head.

Genis gulped nervously, holding his kendama in front of him like a shield to block the oppressing atmosphere. His body tensed and a silent vow to not be surprised again passed through his mind.

Colette and Lloyd reacted much the same, though Lloyd was irritated that one of the mercenaries had noticed the threat before the rest of them.

The sojourn through the temple _would_ have been quiet and borderline casually-stealthy if Lloyd hadn't yelled in surprise when globe of green gelatinous fluid launched an oddly colored stone at the party. The surprise stemmed from the 'stone' hitting the wall near Lloyd's head and cracking the stonework.

His shout was loud enough to capture the interest of the monsters and the background noise increased as they closed in on the group.

Tayuya retrieved the knives from her thigh holsters, holding them in a dagger-like grip as she joined the battle. The multi-target genjutsu at the entrance had used a moderate amount of chakra, and adrenaline from melee combat would help her replenish what she was missing.

Her movements were neither graceful nor clumsy, merely efficient uses of stamina to enter combat, harm her target, and retreat. She targeted mostly the zombies, aiming for either the brain or the spinal cord, going for an easy kill. She wouldn't be able to seriously harm the semi-corporeal ghosts or the sludge-like slimes without using ninjutsu.

She noted, after driving her kunai through the roof of a zombie's mouth, that Colette stayed five to fifteen feet away from the monsters, throwing her chakram with surprising skill and angling the throws in such a way that the bladed rings returned to her like a boomerang. The blonde would trip with alarming amounts of luck, dodging the flying stones of the slimes by virtue of slipping on a corpse of a slime or tripping over a dead zombie.

She continued to watch her…

'_What are they to me at this point in time? Comrades? No. Acquaintances…? No. Charges. They are my wards, and I'm stuck protecting them until the Journey ends, after which they're on their own.'_

A brief surge of irritation flared inside her as she thought about how long this mission was going to take. Grabbing hold of the emotion, she twisted it, perverting the minor irritation into a bubbling hatred and consumed it to fuel a throw at a zombie who was trying to sneak up on the child. The knife whistled through the air, slicing through the zombie's neck between the vertebrae above its shoulders. The child looked shocked but quickly began charging 'mana' for a spell against one of the ghosts in their way.

Mana, it seemed, was very close to chakra. Close…but not exactly the same. Mana was the life energy of every living thing, the only differences being within the elves and their descendants. This meant that a dog's mana was exactly the same as a human's. Elves, however, had a strange mana, one that allowed them to cast their 'spells'. Tayuya figured that regular mana could be used to passively augment physical capabilities, but was uncertain as to its limitations past that.

Genis, it seemed, was the spellcaster of the group. He stayed at least fifteen feet away from the enemies at all times. She learned the importance of his kendama; the focus he used when playing with the toy allowed him to clear his mind and concentrate on his spell. Arcane runes, looking similar to seals, lit up on the ground in a variety of colors depending on the element of the spell used. The sigils formed a single circle around Genis, assisting the focus of his spell before he released it.

"**Stone Blast!"**

The kunoichi gave a calculating stare at the chunks of rock that lifted from the ground, battering the viscous slime and lifting it into the air where it was sliced repeatedly by Lloyd and his twin bokken. The wooden swords were actually somewhat damaging. Not as good as real swords, but given that they were blunted and made out of wood, he was doing remarkable amounts of damage with them.

Lloyd, it seemed, had kept some parts of the training she had given him and lagged with the rest. He was quick and agile, showing ambidexterity by his skill with his twin blades. He had a stone face of determination as he leapt into the fray head first.

After descending a staircase, they halted to catch their breath and tend to their wounds. Kratos, it seemed, had some elven ancestry somewhere as he was capable of casting the minor healing spell **First Aid**. Like its namesake, it mended wounds that were superficial, limited by what actual first aid was capable of healing.

The solemn mercenary turned towards Lloyd with a strange look in his eyes.

"Are your sword techniques self-taught?"

The red wearing teenager puffed up in pride, crossing his arms over his chest with a cocky grin.

"Yeah, that's right."

Kratos reached into the linings of his coat and pulled out a book from a hidden pocket. He handed it to Lloyd, his face devoid of emotion.

"If you are going to use a sword, you should at least learn the basics."

The teen's face pinked in embarrassment. He was about to offer a retort when Tayuya spoke.

"Your ambidexterity has come a long way, but you're favoring your right hand over your left. It's calling attention to your left hand."

Lloyd's face lit up in recognition, and he pointed at the kunoichi, mouth open to yell out something when she blurred, her hand slapping over his mouth.

"Quiet, idiot!"

Genis snickered at Lloyd's plight, prompting the dual swordsman to scowl. Tayuya removed her hand from his face, and they continued down into the lower level.

* * *

"Ooh, what's this?"

Colette's question was directed towards a large cubical block of stone with odd markings on it. The lower level was clear of monsters, strangely enough, and the floor was translucent, showing a floor below them. There were several holes in the upper floor leading to pathways on the lower floor.

Colette had turned to notify the rest of the group of her discovery when the block unfolded, becoming a monolith of stone and rock. The monster cocked a large fist back, ready to swing and Tayuya was forced into action. She shoved Colette out of the way and succeeded in mostly turning to the side to dodge the incoming blow, but the heavy fist clipped her shoulder, dislocating it with the extreme force of the punch and the angle of impact.

A sickening snap caught the rest of the group's attention.

Tayuya, red in the face from pain and anger, held her dislocated shoulder and forced the joint back into the socket with a similar sound. She hadn't uttered a word. The flesh around the joint was already reddening and was darkening into a bruised purple.

The kunoichi retreated to the back, leaving Lloyd to rush into the melee with Colette and Genis offering supporting fire. Kratos was beginning a **First Aid** spell for her shoulder.

'_Kunai and shuriken are useless; it's a walking boulder. Genjutsu is useless; it has no intelligence, only instinct. Ninjutsu it is, then.'_

Tayuya began forming hand seals, provoking a raised brow at the strange gestures from Kratos. Genis turned when he felt the upsurge in energy from the kunoichi. Without a word, Tayuya grabbed Kratos' sword, holding it in both arms like a baseball bat, flat edge bared at the golem. She swung, speaking the name clearly as she released her chakra around and through the sword.

"**Fuuton: Kamaitachi no jutsu. (Wind Element: Cutting Whirlwind Technique)"**

True to form, a whirlwind of small wind blades launched from the wide blade of the longsword, having been born from the makeshift fan. The gust of wind blew Colette's hair back and caused both her and Lloyd to dodge for cover instinctively. The golem was hacked into by the blades of wind, apparently doing enough damage to its structure for it to curl up like a spider in the throes of death, returning to the cube form.

Colette proved to be an astonishing klutz when she tripped on air and knocked the cube through a hole in the floor to the floor below.

Another golem appeared, warping into the room with a sound of air scattering. Tayuya cast her gaze around the room, paying special attention to the floor below them and saw something that caught her interest. Several cube-shaped recesses on the bottom floor, very similar in size to the golem corpse, spanned an impassable chasm between the bottom floor and an alcove carved into a wall.

"It's a puzzle. Push the corpses through the holes in the floor. I'll arrange the cubes."

With her command given, the redhead hopped through the hole in the floor, landing astride the cube and pushing it.

The puzzle was quickly finished, and the rest of the party descended a convenient stairway to the floor below. They crossed the path of cubes to an altar where a ring sat, the silver band inlaid with a large red gem.

According to Genis, it was the Sorcerer's Ring; a holy artifact of the Church of Martel used to disable most traps and bypass some obstacles.

Lloyd, apparently, was only interested in the fact that it shot fire.

They quickly retreated from the altar and returned to the ground floor, taking the second pathway and coming face to face with a glowing blue barrier. Colette, as holder of the Ring, shot a small fireball that disabled the barrier.

'_Joy. She can trip on air and they gave her a holy artifact that sets things on fire. I can only hope she isn't a closet pyromaniac.'_

Just inside the door was a small circular pad, apparently a Warp Pad that teleports someone to a specific destination. Tayuya waited until Lloyd stepped on it before using it, wanting to make sure it wasn't a trap.

The actual 'receiving of the Oracle' was a disappointment for the kunoichi. She had seen many things in her life and a winged humanoid was definitely not special to her. After all, Kimimaro sprouted a bone tail, Kidomaru got a third eye, and she herself got a crown of horns when the three used the Second Level of the Cursed Seal.

She was, however, surprised at the tower that appeared. At least several thousand feet high, it went from the ground into the clouds with no apparent top. She dismissed it as non-threatening after a few moments. After all, if it fell, there was only a small chance it would fall in their direction. Even then it was so far away that they would have ample time to get out of the way.

The kunoichi left with Kratos and Colette, as the blonde apparently wanted to show them around the village before they had to meet with the mayor concerning the Journey itself. As designated guardians, both Tayuya and Kratos were required to come to the meeting.

Passing a crazed blur of orange that had an enviable maniacal cackle, they quickly left the temple.

* * *

"Miss Tayuya, how were you able to cast a spell without a spell circle?"

Colette, ever polite, was the first to break the silence on their leisurely walk back to the village. Kratos, unnoticeably, perked up at the subject. He, too, wished to know how she was able to do such a thing.

"I was trained to be subtle; spell circles catch attention. Hand gestures, however, do not."

Kratos mulled this over in his head for a moment before speaking.

"Those strange movements in the temple…?"

"Were used to mold my energy."

The man looked thoughtful, and Colette picked up the slack in the conversation.

"Can anyone learn how to do that?"

"I'm not sure. I'm not qualified to teach, however. I learned through measures that are frowned upon."

Colette was stumped by what she had meant by that, but Kratos had an idea of what she meant and so he changed the subject.

"You're…different now."

Tayuya gave him a dispassionate look, gesturing him to elaborate.

"At the temple, you were savage and heated."

The kunoichi shrugged one shoulder, the other still slightly bruised from the dislocation earlier, the spell having only been able to heal so much.

"Part of the way I was trained; I contain destructive emotions and use them to fuel my fighting."

Kratos gave a slight nod.

"I see. It's a strange practice."

"As long as the person is in control, not the emotion, it's a useful practice. It produces more adrenaline and urges the person to use lethal force and to not hesitate."

Colette watched the two discuss fighting with a small smile on her lips. Her two guards were getting along, which was good. She didn't want there to be any strife on her Journey; it was going to be sad enough as it was.

* * *

The meeting with the mayor was…irritating, to say the least. The man was a pudgy fellow with a badly crafted toupee, made out of what Tayuya could swear was one of the rabbit hides she had sold. The man was a pompous buffoon who believed himself important, and Tayuya spent the majority of the meeting leaning lazily against the wall, humming a tune under her breath.

The crazed orange blur also attended the meeting and apparently was their third companion on this Journey; an elf named Raine. The woman was several inches taller than Tayuya and wore a burnt orange colored over robe that ended at her knees. It was open in front, revealing a white blouse worn over loose black pants that were tucked into white boots. The woman had a similar hairstyle to her younger brother, Genis, in that it was spiky and shoulder length, though hers were marginally tamer. In addition, her bangs were swept from the right side of her face to the left, creating a windswept look.

At the end of the meeting, when the mayor announced the conclusion, the door was opened to admit Lloyd and Genis.

"Hey, were you talking about the Journey of Regeneration just now?"

Colette nodded, waving happily from her seat to her two friends. Lloyd spoke again, obviously excited.

"Wow, I want to go too! I wanna see Colette regenerate the world!"

Genis piped up from his position.

"If Raine's going, I want to go too!"

Kratos immediately shot them down.

"No. You'll get in the way."

This, apparently, was shocking news to Lloyd, and he quickly made his confusion clear.

"What?!"

The mercenary's face twisted into a scowl.

"The battles at the chapel were nothing compared to what awaits us on the Journey. Children need to stay home."

Lloyd and Genis turned to Tayuya, apparently wanting her opinion on the matter. Kratos and Raine, too, turned to the woman, wanting to know her views.

"I don't care."

This view gained her several surprised looks, and Lloyd and Genis began cheering, thinking she was giving her blessing. Her eyes quickly hardened as she spoke, cutting the joyous outcries.

"My only job is to protect the Chosen. If you become a liability to her safety, you will be eliminated."

All three of the children were stunned speechless. The adults all stiffened in shock and apprehension at her callous statement, even as she walked to the door. She only gave one parting sentence.

"All threats to the Chosen's safety will be eliminated; that is the mission I have been given, and that is the order I will carry out."

She hid in the shadows after that. She listened to the rest of the meeting, as well as Colette talking to her friends. Discreetly, she followed the group through the forest to Dirk's house, where she reappeared. The only one not surprised was Kratos, though it was Raine who spoke.

"What are _you_ doing here?"

The woman was apparently hostile at perceived the threat to her brother's life.

"I need to commission Dirk for something."

They heard the telltale sound of an argument, as well as flesh hitting flesh and flesh hitting wood, something that rattled a few things in the house. A teenaged male voice yelled "You don't have to hit me!" right before Lloyd exited the house, rubbing his cheek.

Ignoring his embarrassment, Tayuya walked past him and into the house.

"Oi! Shorty! I need a sword!"

The dwarf whirled around to face her with a surprised look.

"Sword? All you've needed lately are those knives and stars!"

The redhead looked irritated at something.

"I've got a mission; protect the Chosen. Several monsters have tough skin, or aren't organic, and I need a sword for them. It needs to be from flexible metal or it'll break very quickly. Preferably a hiltless jian."

The dwarf nodded and quickly began taking measurements of her to make a custom sword. Tayuya left soon after. She scanned her surroundings, noting Kratos paying his respects at a gravestone, one she knew to be dedicated to Anna, Lloyd's mother.

She returned to her home, packing up spare weapons and monetary goods into a small knapsack. Her sleep was dreamless, having learned many years ago at the start of her training to use genjutsu on herself to prevent dreams and nightmares.

* * *

Early the next day, they set off. Dirk had stayed up the entire night making the sword, something Tayuya was grateful for, and the man passed out soon after receiving payment for it.

The walk was rather tense, as all three of her traveling companions held some qualms against her due to her statement the previous day. It didn't bother her overmuch as long as they didn't try to ambush her in her sleep. Pulling out her flute, something that caused Kratos to stiffen, she began playing a song.

The tense atmosphere diminished some at that and subconsciously Colette began bobbing her head in time with the tune.

When they stopped to rest at the House of Salvation for the night, Raine spoke to Tayuya. Colette was offering her prayers at the altar, and Kratos was leaning against the wall near the doorway, discreetly listening in.

"Would you really kill those two if they came?"

The kunoichi looked up from her mug of water, having paid a few gald for some refreshment after the walk.

"As I said; if they pose a threat to the Chosen's safety, I will eliminate the threat. If they came along, that's fine. If they endanger the Chosen in any way, I'll take them out. Depending on the situation and the severity of the danger, I would either knock them out or kill them."

Raine looked a little relieved at that, having believed that if they came along at all the mercenary woman would kill them. However, it didn't completely assuage her fears. She held her silence after that.

Kratos, more familiar with the workings of mercenaries, felt relieved. What Tayuya had said translated as: "they can come, but if they do something stupid, they'll pay for it".

That night, as Raine and Colette went to sleep in their shared room, Kratos spoke to Tayuya.

"Do you know how to use a sword?"

The redhead scowled.

"Does it matter? I only need to use it on certain things."

The man gave her a pointed look.

"If you don't know how to wield it, then it's useless and a liability to the safety of the Chosen."

The woman's scowl deepened, brown eyes narrowed at the deliberate use of her own words against her.

"I know the basics."

The man looked honestly surprised for a moment. He regained composure quickly.

"I will teach you if you are willing."

Tayuya blinked in shock for a moment. She looked down, eyebrows furrowed in a frown.

"Thanks."

Her response was very guarded, something that the male mercenary picked up on though he swiftly hid his curiosity. After all, why should a mercenary feel so uncomfortable about getting help from another mercenary? Something wasn't right with this situation. He looked out the window, measuring the time by the position of the moon.

"We still have some time. Grab your sword."

They both left the House of Salvation, moving towards the edge of the forest to practice without waking their companions. The lesson was simple and efficient, teaching Tayuya to get used to the weight and reach of the sword she used as well as adjusting her stance to fit her new blade.

Neither were particularly winded, their breathing only slightly heavier than when they had started. As they returned to the House to sleep, Tayuya grumbled underneath her breath.

"I can teach you mana control in return."

Kratos lifted an eyebrow in confusion as well as interest. Mana control? He had never heard of such a thing. Wishing to find out more, he accepted.

"Very well. Tomorrow, then."

"Tomorrow."

They returned to their shared room, a concession made to save money, and quickly went to sleep. Kratos took note of how Tayuya physically moved her bed roughly fifteen feet away from his own, against the opposite wall, and frowned slightly in confusion. Some things didn't make sense about this woman but he could tell whatever she was doing was important to her and held his tongue.

* * *

The next day, Kratos awoke to a peculiar sight. Tayuya had awoken before him and was already ready to leave. Her small pack was on her back and she was staring out the window with an unreadable expression.

He quickly got ready for another day of travel and the two met Raine and Colette once the two had woken up.

Raine and Colette walked at the front of the little group, giving generous space to the two mercenaries.

'_Stupid, but understandable. They know each other, they don't know us. Even if they are in more danger by being further from us.'_

The two mercenaries were able to hold a low conversation out of earshot of the two as they moved from flatland into desert towards the oasis village, Triet.

"What is mana control?"

"Exactly what it sounds like; controlling your mana."

"What is it useful for?"

"Many things. For example, you can walk on water, walk on walls, strengthen your body, strengthen your strikes, numb your pain, and increase the speed you heal."

Both of Kratos' eyebrows shot up at that, very interested in this discipline that he had never heard of.

"I see. Walking on sand?"

Tayuya nodded, and the next step she took, she stood on top of the sand. After a few steps on top of the sand, she continued walking the normal way with her feet sinking into the sand.

"Why did you stop?"

"It takes mana to do any of those feats. There's no need to walk on the sand, so why waste mana doing it?"

"I see."

Their conversation dwindled from there, both keeping their thoughts to themselves. There was only one pause in the walking expedition, when a group of six bandits attempted to rob the group. As he was the closest to Tayuya, only Kratos was witness to her lazy, almost placid demeanor melting into an expression of sadistic joy and impending cruelty.

Nimble fingers flew through hand gestures almost quicker than Kratos could see and he was the only one close enough to hear what she said.

"**Magen: Jigoku Koka. (Demonic Illusion: Descending Hell)"**

_An oppressive heat settled upon the makeshift battlefield, causing sweat to begin pouring down skin. Distant crackling and roaring was buried beneath a keening scream of atmosphere being ripped apart by a high speed object. Two bandits looked up at the sky, terrified, as a molten orange sphere descended upon the battlefield from the heavens above. Their heads whipped from side to side, looking to their comrades and even their enemies for some hope of salvation, some sense of security in the face of an apocalypse. Nobody else seemed to notice the globe of impending doom bearing down upon them from on high even though sweat slicked their skin and heat flushed their cheeks. The only person who seemed to have any notion, any semblance of an idea, of the fact that the world was about to end was the woman with red hair._

_She gave them a _look_, and did _something _to them. It was _terrifying_, a feeling of an ant looking up at a human holding a magnifying glass, knowing it was mere seconds before they became charred husks of organic matter, their lives insignificant in the face of such overwhelming size and malice. Her lips - when did they become so _red_, as if stained by blood? - curled into an expression of crazed glee and unholy fanaticism, as if her prayers to some god of anarchy and murder had come true and her deity had descended upon the earth. Her _eyes_ - and when did they become red, a bloody crimson like arterial blood spraying into the air? - narrowed on them with such _focus _that they felt as if their every secret was laid bare before her unholy might._

_"Mother...we shall come together...and wipe out the insignificant insects who _dare _infest your planet! Look at them...let them fear your visage, let them fear our _might_!"_

_The woman looked up at the meteor descending upon the battlefield_, smiling _in the face of utter destruction, and _laughed.

Raine and Colette (the latter trying to reason with the bandits) were confused when two bandits looked up to the sky and began screaming, running in terror. The apparent leader of the bandits caught one of them and slapped the terrified bandit, breaking the illusion. The other, however, kept running.

A few gestures later, and the bandit turned around and began running toward Tayuya, taking no notice of his changed trajectory as his illusionary world was altered, the scenery leading him in another direction.

The bandit was still a ways off, and both parties had stopped to watch him run. As the bandit neared the kunoichi, she simply stepped to the side, or at least appeared to. The bandit running towards her dropped to the ground, bleeding out of a slit neck. Raine and Colette were shocked and the rest of the bandits looked on in fear. Only Kratos was able to see the blur of movement when Tayuya had unsheathed a knife and slit the bandit's throat.

Tayuya flicked the bloodied knife, burying it in the second bandit who had been affected by the genjutsu. The knife stuck out of the left side of his chest, having slipped between his ribs and into his heart. The other bandits, having readied their weapons, charged.

One was easily dispatched by Raine, the elf hitting the man on the back of the head with the tip of her staff and knocking him out. The second went to Colette, who tripped him with an apologetic expression, causing the bandit to land face first into a rock that was hidden by the sand, knocking him out. The girl babbled apologies to the unconscious body for tripping him.

The third lunged at Kratos, clashing swords with the mercenary.

The fourth, following the examples of his comrades, dashed at Tayuya. This one was apparently connected to the two she had killed as the man had a fire of rage in his eyes. The kunoichi's expression turned decidedly malicious, raising a hand in a blatant 'come at me' gesture.

The man obliged, sword swinging with some skill. He managed to get within five feet of Tayuya before she moved.

Dropping to a crouch, she kicked out with a chakra enhanced foot, landing the kick solidly on the man's kneecap and breaking the man's leg in an unneccessarily brutal fashion. The knee bent backwards, knocking the bandit to the ground with a howl of pain. His noise was quickly silenced when a foot crushed his windpipe as well as his neck.

Raine and Colette looked slightly green, though Kratos had a pensive expression on his face. He knew that, for a woman of Tayuya's build, coupled with her lack of momentum, she shouldn't have been physically able to do bend the man's knee backwards. Could this be what she meant by enhancing her strikes with mana?

Colette offered a prayer to the Goddess Martel for the lives taken and asked for forgiveness for her and her companions' actions. Afterward, she and Raine started off towards Triet once again. Kratos lifted an eyebrow in minor surprise when Tayuya started rifling through the bandits' clothing, pulling out several gald and valuable items.

The kunoichi didn't speak but her practiced movements spoke volumes. She was quite used to doing this, and indeed was proficient at checking the unconscious bodies as well as corpses for valuables.

The two mercenaries quickly caught up with the elf and Chosen after Tayuya had retrieved a total of one hundred Gald, several bolts of attractive cloth, and a few pretty gems.

* * *

Triet...

The village was rather small, smaller than even Iselia. It seemed to be more of a rest stop than an actual village, judging by the lack of frolicking children.

'_Does mana shortage lower birth rates?'_

The group quickly began asking around for the location of any ruins nearby that could be the Fire Seal, as they had been directed by the winged man. Triet had apparently been attacked by the nearby Desians, the attack ending with one broken building and a casualty that had earlier been removed though their blood still stained the ground. Colette managed to trip over a piece of wood from the broken building and created a hole in the building right next to the broken one. The hole, oddly, was an exact silhouette of her.

Fortunately for Tayuya, the kunoichi quickly stopped trying to figure out how the physics of that worked.

It was around noon when they got a lead on some nearby ruins.

The group quickly set out to investigate the ruins to verify whether or not they would be the actual Seal of Fire.

Colette was happily talking to Raine, calling her 'Professor' out of habit. The elf looked amused and indulgent, steering their conversation towards education with every new subject brought up. The conversation between the two mercenaries, on the other hand, was quite somber.

"The Chosen is naïve and untrained."

Kratos agreed, turning his head slightly to acknowledge his fellow mercenary.

"She is. She may not be ready for this Journey."

Tayuya snorted under her breath, making her displeasure clear.

"She gets distracted by _butterflies_. I can't train her; she'd die from my methods, if she didn't kill herself from the knowledge that comes with my profession."

Raine, who had been gifted with sharper hearing than Tayuya had thought, turned around with a suspicious look on her face.

"_Your _profession? I thought both you and Kratos were mercenaries?"

The male mercenary, too, had caught the wording. The redhead gave a small, bitter smile as she reminisced. It was but one of many differences between this world, Sylvarant, and the one she had come from. Due to the lack of constant war, humanity hadn't needed to go to such lengths of depravity as to train children to become killers. They were _soft_, and it _irritated _the kunoichi that she was surrounded by so many reminders of _what could have been _if she hadn't accepted the snake's proposition all those years ago. She looked at Colette and she saw an alternate future, one unblemished by the cynicism of paranoia, the knowledge of torture, of butchery, of killing. She looked at Raine and saw another future, one that had been untouched by the blood of hundreds, possibly _thousands _of humans that stained Tayuya's hands.

Her few moments of contemplation made her response only _slightly _spiteful.

"No shit, lady. However, he was either trained or trained himself to fight _monsters_ of all types."

Fearing what the answer would be, Raine spoke.

"And you?"

The kunoichi's small smile broadened. Her lips, already thin, disappeared from view as her mouth grew taught, baring her teeth. Teeth that Tayuya had _used_ as weapons to kill people in certain circumstances.

"I was trained to eliminate humans."

Kratos nodded once, eyes thoughtful. He had noticed her bitter expression, and privately pondered on just how deep the wounds went when it came to his fellow mercenary's past. It was inconsequential, he knew, and thus he had no business prying unless her past would prove to be dangerous to the Chosen.

"I had a few suspicions, given your weapons, use of illusions, and your ill-equipped fight against the golem."

Raine was about to express her views on the subject when a green blob appeared on the horizon, quickly growing. It took a minute for it to reach the group, the shapeless blob having been Noishe, Lloyd's pet 'dog'. Riding on its back was Genis, looking scared and nervous. He was breathless when he yelled out to the group from the back of the animal.

"Lloyd got captured by the Desians!"

The humorless expression on Tayuya's face turned into an actual smile, one filled with dark promises. She let her black emotions bubble inside her chest, fleeting fantasies of indescribable pains and tortures blossoming in her mind from fertile soil, the fruits of a decade of war, death, and human brutality. Oh the _melodies _she would play, the symphony of anguish and horror that would drown all rational thought, resonating with the deepest fears of sentient minds.

"It seems my expertise will be of use."

* * *

Author's Note: I had the majority of this written up before I finally made a breakthrough with writing and finally figured out how to adequately express the feelings of characters. Hence, there's some accents of it appearing in this chapter, and it will take place in subsequent chapters.

On a sidenote, there's a tip of the hat to Final Fantasy 7 in her genjutsu this chapter.


	4. Depravity

"Talking"

'_Thinking'/Illusion/Remembrance_

"**Spell/Technique"**

**

* * *

**Depravity

Genis was the only one who didn't stiffen at the kunoichi's declaration, having not heard the earlier conversation. Adding to that, the woman's cruel smile that slowly lit up her face in a black mockery of glee disturbed even the mercenary, Kratos.

Raine's protective older sister instinct was going haywire at the moment, her hands gripping her staff until her knuckles turned white. Her urge to stand in front of her brother to metaphorically and physically shield him from harm was burning in her heart, exacerbated by the dark excitement making its way known on the redhead's face. She remembered all too clearly the declaration the woman had made about 'eliminating the threats to the Chosen's safety'. Would this be considered a threat? She didn't _know _and such a fact _burned _her in its own way.

She was a _professor_; it was her _job _to know things. The unknown rarely held benevolence to those it revealed itself to and it was her job as the older sister and the only family Genis had to protect the child from anything malicious, whether it was a splinter stuck in his finger or an apparently psychopathic killer-for-hire employed to protect the Chosen.

Colette, likewise, was caught in her own dilemma. The knowledge that Lloyd was in danger pricked at her in a way unfamiliar to the blonde. She was struck with a frighteningly ferocious desire to ransack the Desian base and retrieve her friend, something completely unheard of for her, the Chosen. She disliked the title of 'Chosen'; it reminded her all too clearly of the eventual ending of her Journey, whether she was successful or not.

Regardless of this fact of her being a prophetical messiah in the flesh, she was struck with a searing _anger _at the Desians. How _dare _they make her quest more stressful by kidnapping her childhood friend? Lloyd and Genis were two of the few in the small town of Iselia who looked at her and saw a _human_. They saw Colette, the sometimes ditzy, blonde klutz. They saw _her_, who she had grown up to be. They didn't see 'The Chosen', the messiah in the flesh who was supposed to save the world and for that simple fact they had her loyalty a thousand fold.

This desire to rescue her friend clashed with the knowledge that Tayuya was her guardian for the time being and a heroic rescue of a prisoner of Desians would put Colette in danger. It would be a threat to her safety as the Chosen of Mana. Tayuya was instructed to counter or eliminate all threats to her safety. Would the woman let her rush off to her friend? The blonde wasn't sure, but she prayed with all her heart that, even if they _did _rush off to save Lloyd, the redhead wouldn't be too harsh on him for becoming a threat to the safety of the Chosen.

Oddly, Kratos was the least affected by the knowledge. He knew, due to mercenary policy, what was about to take place.

After a few moments of fantasizing the tortures she would implement against her sentient foes, Tayuya's malicious excitement diminished and she broke out of her apparent daydream. Her expression gradually returned to impassivity as her tactical mind took consideration of the facts they knew.

'_Lloyd was captured by the Desians. Desians do not want the Chosen to succeed in her quest. Colette, Chosen, childhood friend of Lloyd, most likely wants to rescue him. Lloyd was taught to fight by me, not to resist torture and interrogation. As if the dwarf would want me, let alone _let _me teach him that. If we leave him, he will likely be tortured and interrogated as to the weaknesses of the Chosen and her location, thus putting her in danger. If we save him, we're going to put her in danger. Oh, the decisions…'_

The kunoichi knelt in front of Colette, much to the surprise and bewilderment of three of the companions. Kratos hid a smirk as he knew what was coming next.

"Chosen, you are my client. It is your decision whether we retrieve Lloyd or continue the mission. If we attempt retrieval, you will be placed in danger. If we do not, he will likely be interrogated about your whereabouts and weaknesses, thus putting you in danger further along in time. Both scenarios hold danger for you, and therefore it is your decision."

Colette was a little confused as to the wording of the statements, and privately wanted to ask Tayuya to simply call her 'Colette'. However, the safety of her friend took precedence in her mind. She unconsciously stood a little straighter, her blue eyes bright with determination.

"What's the point of saving the world if I can't save the people in front of me? Let's go save Lloyd!"

Tayuya stood without a sound, raking her eyes over the group as she assessed the possibilities.

'_Infiltration and retrieval. We'll need to be quiet and avoid surveillance to retrieve him…'_

The woman turned to Genis and scowled in irritation as he looked to be stunned at the current events.

"Brat, you know where the base is, correct? Take us there."

The boy broke out of his reverie, glaring at her for calling him a brat. Though high on adrenaline, the child still looked tired. Most likely the emotional trauma from seeing his friend taken away from him was exhausting him.

"We have to hurry! He was taken almost an hour ago, and Noishe had to run all the way here!"

Tayuya snorted in scorn, speaking with condescension.

"Just point the way, brat. He's not in danger for another seven hours, give or take an hour."

Frustrated by her nonchalance when his friend was in danger, possibly going to be executed, he pointed the way and went over to hug his sister, drawing comfort from her presence.

Tayuya looked up at the sky, calculating the time to be around early afternoon. Judging by the speed of the 'dog', their trip was going to take around five hours, leaving them somewhere around two hours once they got to the base to retrieve Lloyd.

Annoyed at the situation, the kunoichi turned to the group.

"You all are going to have to learn something from me on the way there."

Kratos looked upon her with interest, wondering what token of information and skill she was going to relinquish to the mismatched group. The woman was incredibly stingy with information, and to offer to teach something was quite…unusual. She apparently felt the need for the teaching to be required for their rescue mission.

"You're going to have to relearn how to walk."

That…was not what he was expecting.

Raine was the one who voiced her curiosity.

"Learn how to _walk_? Lloyd's in danger and you want us to _walk_?!"

The kunoichi glared at her and did _something_. Kratos felt a foreign pressure in the air for an instant, something that caught him off guard. Raine apparently was the target as the woman stiffened and her eyes widened in horror and fear. Tayuya spoke, her irritation becoming known.

"You're going to relearn how to walk because I can't _stand _to hear you _clunking around_ in a fucking _desert_ and the way you people walk is going to get us _killed_ when we're _infiltrating a metal box, _you dumbass."

The elf glared heatedly at her, fear forgotten as her own anger made itself known.

"And what of Lloyd? Do we leave him there in the base for _hours_ while we _walk through the desert_?"

Colette was wringing her hands in anxiety, wanting her companions to stop fighting so they could focus on saving Lloyd.

Tayuya's teeth were gritting in her frustration, finally releasing the information to make them complacent with the required teaching.

"If the Desians aren't completely _incompetent_ shitheads, then they know that forcing a knocked out civilian into consciousness isn't going to get any good information out of them. They were stupid enough to knock him out to capture him, apparently thinking him a threat, and now they have to wait for him to wake up before torturing or interrogating him if they don't want him fucking _high _off of whatever they think of using to wake him up. It's _annoying as all hell _and you can't get _any _information out of people that way. Now you're going to relearn how to walk so you don't make noise or we're all going to _die _because your feet are clunking around metal hallways with half-elves having better than human hearing, thus bringing the _entire base _around us while Lloyd is still unconscious."

Raine relented with a huff after that, pacified by the knowledge that Lloyd would be safe for the time it would take to trek through the desert. She hadn't quite thought the redhead's monologue through, having been infuriated by the woman's apparent lack of compassion, and didn't catch the rather telling details in how she had phrased the information.

Kratos, on the other hand, had been able to able to understand what had just been said and was unnerved at the implications.

* * *

The walk was tense and quiet, the silence only being broken as Tayuya instructed them on how to walk like an assassin so as to leave little to no noise. The trick was to roll the foot from heel to toe in a fluid motion, not putting pressure on one spot in particular of the foot. In this way, the weight of the person was dispersed cleanly throughout the foot through the entire motion of the step, drastically lessening audible 'thumps' from the impact of heel or foot on solid matter.

Colette was able to grasp it the fastest, her cloth boots and slim figure giving her much less mass to disperse and more shock absorbent material. Genis was the second to catch it, his analytical mind being able to do the training in smaller steps, perfecting each part of the movement before combining it into one fluid motion. Kratos was able to do it as much as he could when wearing metal boots and Raine had a lot of weight to distribute due to her larger pack than the rest of the party.

Halfway through the expedition, Tayuya declared them as 'adequate' and forced them to apply the movement to jogging and running.

As the sun descended past the horizon, blanketing the world in a cool shroud of twilight, the group came upon the metal walls of the Desian base. They halted for a break, drinking in much needed water after the incredibly sweaty expedition across the desert during the heat of the day. Normally Tayuya would have rested and moved during the night, but there was limited time for the mission and some sacrifices had to be made.

There were two guards patrolling the only entrance to the walled off courtyard of the base. Tayuya analyzed their movements and found them lacking; their walk was stiff and wasted energy, probably only having basic weapon training. They were merely cannon fodder soldiers that were but a statistic when fatalities were counted.

They would not be missed, but they had information.

The kunoichi searched the walls of the base with a piercing gaze, searching out the hidden cameras and security systems. To normal humans and probably even to half-elves, there would be nothing immediately visible. A trained shinobi augmenting their eyesight with chakra would be able to catch flickers of light as moonlight glinted off of camera lenses as they moved and swiveled.

It was worse than she thought; the entire outside of the base was watched, barring absolutely no exceptions. There were no blind spots. **Henge (Transformation) **was a useless endeavor against machines. This was because the chakra matrix of the illusion changed the way how _people _perceived the appearance of the user, changing how they looked but _only _to the eyes of the beholder.

Machines were infallible; all illusions about someone's appearance would be negated by the eye of the camera.

This…was about to get really annoying fairly quickly. The cameras would see them entering no matter what; having a group storm the complex would be far too risky. Tayuya dropped her small pack to the ground, holding up her hand in a universal signal to halt.

"Stay here, they have cameras looking at every inch of the outside. I'll retrieve one of the guards to question him about the layout."

Colette, showing amazing amounts of perception, spoke. Coming from a small village like Iselia, she probably didn't know what a camera was. However, she understood that the 'cameras' were 'looking at every inch of the outside' and thus pieced together that it was something to help watch things.

"But…doesn't that mean they'll see you?"

The kunoichi's mouth curled into a grim smile.

"I'll make it difficult for them. I'll only be a moment."

The redhaired woman drew her sword from the straps holding it along her spine on her back to protect her spinal cord from injury, holding the hilt of it in her teeth as her fingers maneuvered through a small string of seals. Her lips barely moved as a mumble of a name left her lips.

"**Ninpo: Kyoumei. (Ninja Art: Resonance)**"

The blade of her sword whined softly in a note higher than human vocal chords could attempt to recreate. The technique was forcing the molecules in the blade to vibrate so as to make it slice cleanly through even stone without harming the blade. _This _was why she needed a flexible metal for the blade; any other and it would have shattered in her grip the moment it started to resonate.

A dark smile spread across her face as she disappeared from sight in a blur of motion. Raine, her body more developed than her brother's, was able to follow her movements to a certain extent. She lacked the martial experience in movement tracking that was gained from a lifetime of fighting, however, and so it was Kratos who was able to see with clarity as the kunoichi sped along the top of the sand, feet making no mark in the shifting surface.

He watched as she sped past one of the guards, nothing but a stray breeze in the night air as she cut him down with the very sword he was teaching her to use, the vibrating metal sliding cleanly through breastplate and flesh as if it were nothing but water. The blood didn't even get to stain the killer's blade with its taint to remind her of the deed she had done.

He saw her slide the sword back into its sheath while not slowing in the slightest, shifting without stopping to move towards the other guard.

The small woman pinned the male guard's arms to his sides with a bear hug from behind. Her speed further increased when she disappeared from sight, reappearing several meters in front of the group with a struggling guard in her arms.

With practiced ease, Tayuya divested the guard of his armor while still holding him captive. Short, messy brown hair was revealed that settled around pointed eartips, blue eyes wide and frightened set into a face that clearly wasn't hardened by the brutality of warfare. His body revealed him to be near his mid twenties, though with half-elves and elves appearances were deceiving when it came to age.

She questioned the man outside of hearing of the group, hands frequently flicking weapons into view to frighten the man into speaking. The man's responses were not tempered with a calm demeanor, however, and his responses were easily heard by the rest of the group.

A flinch from the edges of Tayuya's peripheral view caught her interest when the name 'Lord Yuan' was spoken; Kratos might have connections with the Desian or have had a close friend named Yuan.

After giving her the information she required, the man started crying, pleading for his life, that he had a family back home with a wife and child and he just wanted to keep them safe.

The kunoichi leant down to his pointed ear, speaking softly in complete confidence that she was outside of Raine's elven hearing. Her breath cascaded over the half-elf's sensitive ears, causing him to whimper in fear at her proximity. Her voice _oozed _a malice that spoke of cruelty and brutality, both dealt and endured.

"I had a family, once. I killed them."

A twist of the kunai in her hand silenced the man, his heart pierced by the sharp knife. The man's mind screamed that _he wasn't ready_, that he _had a family _and _he didn't want to leave them alone_. Lord Yuan had informed them that they would die with pride for their work, to die knowing they had contributed to something great.

The man, nameless to his foe, could only feel bitter about dying in such a way and, to an extent, pitied his killer. When Tayuya had spoken for that instant before his death, he had smelled her breath.

Deep underneath the smell of what she had been eating last and the strong smell of his own fear, he smelled something. It reminded him of rotting fruit, the sickly sweet smell of decay as something breaks down into its component parts.

He pitied her for that scent, even as his heart caught in his throat at the knowledge that he wouldn't see his family anymore. He didn't even register her words.

The kunoichi didn't know why Kratos couldn't look at her in the eyes after that.

It was decided that Tayuya would go into the base and break out Lloyd so as to avoid the entire group being caught on camera. Colette and Raine would be prepared for medical assistance should Lloyd be injured, and Kratos would be ready to carry them _both _back to Triet if he had to when the alarms went off.

* * *

Inside the Desian Base…

There was something about this base that struck Tayuya as unusual. There were very few actual soldiers patrolling a base of its size. It didn't make sense; why make such a large base when the force actually inhabiting it wasn't that large? There were several possibilities; the force initially had been large enough for the base but had dwindled due to relocation or death. Or perhaps the base hadn't originally belonged to the Desians and they had staged a hostile takeover.

The second one didn't quite make sense, however. She had noted that, as opposed to Iselia, the base was technologically advanced. It actually surpassed Orochimaru's bases in technology, though she was quick to disable or tamper with any security camera along the way, knowing it would not do if her course to her destination was spotted on security systems. They knew she was in the base from the outside security systems, but they didn't know _where _she was going.

Camera technology was the highest that ninja technology in Orochimaru's ranks had progressed, the rest of the base making no sense to her. The Desians were very familiar with this technology, however, and thus it seemed to be 'Desian Technology' since the rest of Sylvarant had access to no such technology.

The foray into the base was blissfully encounter-free, having gotten knowledge of the patrol routes and times from the interrogated guard. She moved with a purpose, feet barely touching the ground as she descended through the complex to the prison.

She descended another staircase, finally coming upon the prison. The air was heavy with the smell of disinfectant, burning at the sinuses. The walls were pristine and white, most likely to unnerve any prisoners into jarring their mental state to a nervous one more prone to giving up information.

The only thing the ambiance was doing was irritating Tayuya. It reminded her of Orochimaru's labs, something that evoked feelings of rage and hatred from her. She drowned herself in these emotions, activating her adrenaline to pump through her body as it shifted into a fight-or-flight response mode. Years of mental and physical training were required to stay in this state without giving it away through body language. While Tayuya looked impassive, if annoyed, on the outside…she was surrounding herself with a cesspool of hatred and rage on the inside.

'_Sick fucks use the 'white room' approach to their prisoners? Hmph. Unimaginative, if useful. Lloyd, where are you…? The longer I stay, the more I want to leave you behind, incompetent brat.'_

There were two guards in the prison; one behind a desk looking to be playing Solitaire or a version thereof on the computer and one that paced relentlessly back and forth in front of the prison cells. The kunoichi's eyes gleamed with excitement bordering on berserk bloodlust. The objective was in sight.

Tayuya moved her hands in a string of seals, focusing her rage and hatred into a calculatingly cold loathing that shone through her face in an expression of cruel distaste, bringing to bear one of her most amoral of techniques.

"**Genjutsu: Yuiga Ron. (Illusion Technique: Solipsism)**"

_The half-elven guard looked up from his post as a feeling of _wrongness _permeated the air. He couldn't quite put a finger on it, but everything just seemed…off. He shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the computer to continue his game, but his mind felt detached from the situation. What _was _it that was so strange? The feeling prickled at his senses continually until he wondered whether the feeling was real or simply his imagination._

_It _clicked_. What _was _imagination? An altered perception of reality? But then what was _reality _if not for multiple imaginations portraying similar things? What was _real _and what was imagination? Was anything he was doing _'real'_ or was he simply a figment of imagination from another being? Was his whole life a _lie_? A game to be played with at someone else's leisure, to hold him under a microscope and laugh at his flaws and follies? _

_He dragged a card from part of the screen to another, adding it to one of the stacks. It still worked. Perhaps it was real? Or…or perhaps it only worked because he thought it worked, thus proving it was his imagination?_

_Time seemed to fly by far too quickly to be physically possible, only increasing the man's uneasy sense of philosophical thought. Did time only fly by when one thought it should fly by, such as when having fun? Perhaps others felt time fly by when they felt bored instead? Was _time _even a static concept, or did it change as well?_

_It seemed as if years flew by, feeling only like moments._

_Perhaps he had caught onto the ruse and now he was being punished by some cosmic force? Did cosmic forces even exist if he didn't believe in them? Perhaps…perhaps that was the reality of the situation. Oh, the _irony_. The only thing that was real was what he _perceived _as real. His mind…his mind was the only thing that was real in a world of illusion. _

_His sanity _fractured _at that moment. Tiny webs of cracks spanned his metaphysical sense of self, a feeling that only furthered his feeling of isolation. After all, how could he even _feel _his sanity fracturing? Wasn't sanity simply a concept, not physical in origin? Or was his ability to know that his mind was the only thing _real _allowing physical damage to take place in his mind?_

_Time _stopped_._

Tayuya left the insane man to his musings, having left him in an illusionary world _of _an illusionary world. The technique was drawing upon the half-elf's own mana to perpetuate itself as he furthered his belief in the illusion, and he would die within several hours seemingly of his heart stopping for an unknown reason. Unless, of course, he could realize that he was in an illusion and break it of his own will. Such a thing was discouraged by the illusion, however, the chakra stimulating parts of the mind that dealt with fear and irrationality, coaxing him into a panic-striken sense of insanity where everything made sense because nothing made sense.

The technique itself was not one she preferred to use. Not out of a misplaced sense of compassion or pity for the people brought down by it, but simply because it was an illusion designed for assassination. Should she become recognized by that illusion, it would become worthless as anyone with an assassin out to get them would have heard about it and would figure out how to escape it.

A kunoichi was better at being an assassin than a shinobi, even if only by a small margin. Much like how shinobi were only marginally better at being demolition specialists. It was all in the chakra and how the individual molded it.

However, both demolition specialists and assassins knew that one should _never _become known for their techniques. Such notoriety would get them targeted or worse; they could be put into the Bingo book for anyone to look them up, one of the worst things possible as they would essentially be 'on the radar' of anyone who perused the book. Their work was best done from the shadows, pinning the blame or glory on someone else and evading perception.

The pacing guard was obscenely easy to take out; a simple throwing of a shuriken buried one of the star's pointed tips between his helmet and chestplate in the neck, cutting his spinal cord. She made sure to retrieve the weapon so as to not leave any evidence.

The locking mechanism for the jail cell where the unconscious Lloyd lay was simple. Sure, it would probably be recorded into some sort of databank that she only opened one cell, thus showing that she had attachment to the particular prisoner. However, she was not on a mission to save anyone else and she did not have the time nor the chakra to act as a ferry for any other possible prisoners.

She picked up Lloyd in a bridal style, the particular style being the best to distribute his weight across her body so as to avoid lurching when moving at high speeds due to disproportionate weight distribution. They had disarmed him of his armor and weapons, though the gem was still set in a small metal ornament on the back of his left hand. He wore simple beige prisoners garments in a shirt and pants, his breathing steady if shallow and body immobile.

Small feathery patterns traced across his skin, a reminder of the lightning that burned him. It had conducted itself through the sweat on his skin from the desert heat and fried the water, creating small featherlike patterns of burns across his skin.

She quickly left the facility, pumping as much chakra as she dared into her legs. Any more and there would be possible ramifications like damage to the muscle, much like plugging a ten watt lightbulb into a socket that generated twenty watts.

* * *

Outside…

The return to the group was silent, as was the return trip to Triet. Raine had tended to the lightning burns that spanned across the majority of Lloyd's visible skin, healing the minor damage and deadening the pain so that his awakening would be as comfortable as possible. He was still her student, after all, and she cared for him as much as she would care for her own family.

As they had only rented two rooms, they were forced to do a bit of switching around. Raine, Genis, and Lloyd took one room while Colette, Kratos, and Tayuya took the other. There were no words exchanged about the specifics, but the unsaid message was clear; Raine trusted Colette's safety to the mercenaries hired to protect her, but the professor trusted them about as far as she could throw them when it came to the rest of the group.

It was during that night that Kratos realized the significance of Tayuya's moving her bed fifteen feet away from his own. Due to the small size of the rooms, the redhead was unable to get fifteen feet away from the occupants unless Kratos and Colette were to share a bed, which was out of the question. Neither mercenary got any sleep that night; Tayuya would twitch violently for her weapons whenever she got close to nodding off and her senses picked up something in her personal space. Kratos was too busy 'keeping watch for Desians', though it was clear to both that he was keeping an eye on Tayuya due to her odd behavior.

* * *

The next day…

It was clear from the day's beginning that the Journey had just taken a slight turn in its course. It had been light-hearted and somewhat laid back, willing to take time to complete the objectives and enjoy the ambiance, cherishing the moments. Now that the Desians were actively hunting the Chosen and had kidnapped Lloyd at one point, their tasks gained urgency.

Lloyd was outfitted with light armor and pale colored clothing at the marketplace in Triet, his wooden blades being replaced with real swords. He had made a good recovery from his 'imprisonment', which was hardly a surprise given that he had not woken up in the prison. He had complained for some time about the lack of red, it being his favorite color, but he was quickly silenced when Tayuya had stated that the Desians only really _knew _him by his red clothing.

Thus, lose the red, become anonymous to the enemy. Good plan.

After the minor shopping trip, they set off towards the ruins they had been at the previous day, determined to find the Seal of Fire.

* * *

Author's Note: In which the story takes a sharp turn away from canon. Colette kept the Sorcerer's Ring in the last chapter, thus even if Lloyd woke up he wouldn't have been able to escape. The smell thing is meant to be both blatantly obvious and somewhat cryptic. It'll be addressed in the next chapter.

Sidenote: Solipsism is the philosophical belief in which reality is nothing but an illusion projected by one's mind, the mind being the only thing 'real'. I called the technique 'amoral' because it superimposed the philosophy onto someone else, driving them insane because they had not naturally progressed into the state of mind.

For a less wishy-washy analogy...say the guard's mind is a cold glass, one that is more set towards logic than abstract thought. She poured boiling water into it, cracking the glass due to the temperature difference creating a reaction. A person who gradually shifts from logic to solipsism would go from a cold glass and gradually warm to luke-warm or even hot.

I didn't understand why Lloyd didn't change his clothing in the game, honestly. The game has some costume changes in it already, would it be so much for the title character to change clothing so as to avoid being targeted by an evil organization out for his blood?


End file.
